Technofeudalism or Technosocialism? WeChat as Socialist Alternative to Platform Capitalism

Keywords: Technofeudalism, Platform Capitalism, WeChat, Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, Marxism, New Media

Abstract

The emergence of Chinese platform technology, WeChat (微信) an application that singularly incorporates functions of messaging, social media, financial services and more, marks a new development in the construction of Chinese socialism and the Chinese nation-building project. What then of the Western critiques of platform technology and their interaction with political economy: technofeudalism and platform capitalism? This article argues that these analyses which successfully critique the way Big Tech platforms have manifested as technologies for capitalist extraction in the West do not accurately account for the function of WeChat in China’s system of socialist development. Notably, both platform capitalism and technofeudalism presuppose that platform technologies emerge out of neoliberalism. Arguing that WeChat’s advancement and success is partly attributed to China’s rejection of neoliberal austerity politics and policy, this article looks to WeChat as a potential alternative to Western modes of digital capitalism.

Author Biography

Jonah Henkle is an MA student in the XE: Experimental Humanities & Social Engagement at New York University (NYU). He also has a BA in the Media and Cultural Studies Department from Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota. His research focuses include Marxism, psychoanalysis, neoliberalism, film theory, critical university studies, Chinese socialism, Vietnamese history, biopolitics, propaganda cinema, and critical theory.

In his spare time, he enjoys torrenting foreign films on his laptop computer in his Jersey City abode. He also has a giant orange cat named Pumpernickel Bagelson.